Few Xbox 360 Owners Know What Next-Gen Graphics Are

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Microsoft and Sony have both been pushing high-definition visuals this generation, but do people care?

So far, the hardcore have been the early adopters of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, while the mass market waits for the right games (i.e. Grand Theft Auto IV) and price drops to make this generation financially viable. Naturally, then, you might assume gamers with machines now are aware of their HD capabilities, right?

Right?

As it turns out, not so much. The NPD Group released results from their “Next Gen Functionality & Usage” report and some of the numbers are surprising.

According to the results, only 40 percent of PlayStation 3 owners polled were aware the machine had a Blu-ray player and about 50% of that number had popped in a Blu-ray movie during the last 10 times they turned on the machine — the other half didn’t use the feature. The study didn’t poll about Xbox 360’s HD-DVD add-on, as it’s not a standard feature with the Xbox 360 SKU. For reference, about half polled knew about the DVD-playback potential of Xbox 360.

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